Time to fly.
2
SANTA MONICA. STRIPS of commerce surrounded by stucco clusters of apartment housing, swaths of Zen architecture interiors, bamboo-fenced bungalows, minimal, traditional pastels with postage-stamp lawns and overpriced brushed-chrome wine coolers, grandfathered craftsmen filled with orange shag and elderly surfers. Parks and strollers. Pot bellies and tans. Money.
The beach city hugs the coast like a desperate lover. Traffic backs up from the east on concrete arteries, fresh unwanted blood from inland districts stream in like a temporary flu, filling the beaches, the boardwalk, the boutique studios, the overpriced restaurants (newly opened and already in the red). Food trucks serve gourmet burgers, lobster on a stick.
The Inlanders, tourists and locals all agree on one destination, a plank-board middle finger pointing west from the mighty knuckles of the coast, the massive digit held aloft upon shoulders of sand-sunk pillars, bases slick with algae.
The Pier.
A paved two-lane road pushes into the beach, extends beneath the great neon sign: Santa Monica Yacht Harbor: Sport Fishing. Boating. Cafes. Sidewalks lining the entry are packed with people filing onto the pier, hitting that first massive wood plank like a piano key, water shushing far below, over the ocean now and still walking. A wonderland. Vendors huddle along the right. Drawing caricatures. Your name written in dolphins shaped like letters. Seashell jewelry and hash pipes. T-shirts. On the left, more shops. Fast food. Hot dogs and soda. Cotton candy. Past that, the housed carousel, where Horace McCoy thought they shot the horses. Now the arcade. Filled with beeping boxes of light that used to cost a quarter, now a dollar. Maybe two. Sixty seconds of confused adrenaline. Skee-Ball, lined up mini-bowling lanes ending in raised bulls-eyes, delicate thunder of the rolls humming beneath the electricity. And look up! The rollercoaster! Twisted steel swooping and dipping like pulled taffy. No screaming yet. Rides open at dusk. Not quite time. The sky is still mandarin, the orange sun still sinking. Buddha-belly in a shimmering bath, surrounded by rose-colored walls. Pink clouds so bright it’s fantasy. All of it unreal.
Here’s Rob and Mary, hand-in-hand, continuing their stroll toward the end of the pier. Smiling. Heading toward the sunset, wanting front-row seats. Rob looks to his left, past the roller coaster, up higher, higher.
The great wheel.
Already blushing neon-red in the husky haze of sundown, the wheel stands like a sentinel god, benevolent. But demanding sacrifice. The priest at its feet fills flesh into its rotating row of iron mouths, sending them up and around; stomachs sink as they go up and up and up. This high the people are ants on the boardwalk. Toy cars filing into rows back toward land. Distant seagulls are black drifting flakes of ash over the water…
But not yet. Not yet…
Rob and Mary walk past the great wheel. Butterflies flutter in his guts. It’s on the wheel he’ll show her the ring. It’s at the top he’ll ask for her hand. She’ll say yes, and we’ll kiss in our private cabin, high above the world.
THE PRIEST OF the great wheel arrives unshaven, a former carnie wearing a ball cap and dark blue T-shirt. Black jeans and high-tops. He readies the ride as the sun sinks, distant and bored, tired of this day. It slashes its own belly, bleeds fire into the cold sea. Seppuku sunset.
THE FUMES FROM the fuel truck are withering. A wall of stench deadly in more ways than one. Frank waits, head down, tries not to bring up more of last-night’s drink.
“I’ll be back.”
The mechanic waves, not caring, and continues to fill the plane, fuel truck rumbling behind him like a beast. The gray tarmac turns charcoal in the encroaching dark. Frank shuffles across the cooling asphalt to the administration building, strides briskly through the empty lobby, past double-doors and into the parking lot where his BMW sits hunched and impatient, black skin reflecting the lot’s phosphorous lights. Frank walks by the car without a glance, heads for Centinela Avenue. He reaches the sidewalk, cars zip by both ways. His head is fuzzy, his stomach gurgles. He punches the button to cross, punches it again. Watches the orange hand showing Halt. Works his feet, chews his cheeks.
“Come on.”
Beyond the busy street and up a block to the next corner lies a small strip of commerce. A watch repair and sales shop. A tailor. A tanning spa called Golden Buns, can you believe it, and a store with posters of bottles hanging in the window, neon signs of beer names with logos. The stretch above the door lit up. LIQUOR. The R sorta flutters, as if a bulb has gone funny.
The orange hand becomes a white pedestrian, frozen in mid-stride. Frank hustles across the street to pick up a bottle of Jim Beam and, god willing, some Twinkies.
Whiskey and processed sponge cake. A sad man’s last meal.
Ten minutes later he’s paying the old guy behind the counter, sticks the bulging paper bag under an arm. Hot-foots it back to the plane. Frank wants to get to Catalina before dark, but realizes now, tilting his head to the sky, that it’s not going to happen. The gold-hued horizon is already bleeding out, red swelling into purple shadow. The clouds above the bruised miasma ruffle toward heaven like the bottom of a wave you’d dive beneath to avoid the water-palm slap, holding your breath. Clouds the color of cotton soaked in fluorescent tie-dye, rippling and vast.
“Ain’t never been lucky,” he mumbles, feeling childish and petulant. His head throbs as he crosses Centinela again, and he debates going back for a pouch of aspirin. A car blares its horn. White walker has become orange hand. Cars wait as he debates.
Has he stopped? Yeah. He has. Flicks his eyes toward a red Honda, a fat face rages behind glass. Mouthed profanities, muted.
He mutters curses at himself, at his ex, at the asshole in the Honda, then scurries up the curb, eager to be into the bottle.
THEY STAND AT the wooden railing, look over the wide sea. The sky is a light show, the water a glassy blue canvas upon which the sun paints its dying colors. Rob grasps Mary’s hand. Her fingers squeeze his greedily, but their eyes never leave the glowing horizon. He asks if she’s hungry. She shakes her head. Behind them, the pier swarms, rides arch into the sky, laughter and noise blink and sizzle in the air like popping stars. Before them only the brilliant flat Pacific, the black triangle silhouette of a faraway sailboat. The muffled racket of sea birds, piercing and hungry. It’s hypnotic.
A rough tugging at Rob’s sleeve. Reverie broken, he looks to Mary, who still gazes outward. He smells sour and ashes. Piss and body odor.
“Hey man, give me a buck.”
Rob grimaces, sensing the intruder’s degraded state before actually seeing him. He turns, sees an old man buried in a heavy brown sport coat, corduroy and patches. His skin is brown as mud, wrinkled as the ocean surface, eyes ice blue and bloodshot. His knit hat too large on his narrow head, tasseled like a child’s toque; dirty cartoon eyes, woven into the brim, spring out above his temples. Rob sees bugs crawling within its weaves.
“I don’t…”
The man opens his mouth into a snarl, exposing two rows of solid yellow teeth, two wooden fences you’d climb over as a child. A shortcut to the park. To a blackened tongue. He pulls hard at Rob’s arm, as if expecting coins to fall from the boy’s palm. “Gimme something!” he says, harsh and guttural.
Mary turns from the ocean, from the sunset. Her blazing blue eyes still reflect the dying light. She sees a wrinkled black thing pulling at Rob’s arm. Glazed and dripping, vacuous eyes, sharp yellow teeth springing from a small mouth, punching through lip and cheek. Black saliva spits from the hole, a tiny geyser, puckered. Rob’s arm is covered in the spray.
“Easy!” Rob yells. Heads turn. Families. Teenagers with bad skin and sodas.
He pushes at the man and the man swipes at him. Sharp nails tear into his skin. A cat’s hiss comes from the foul mouth.
“Hey!”
Without another word the man turns, walks briskly away, cursing into the air.
Rob raises his arm, examines the scratches. He wants to go after the old fucker. Let it go, he thinks. Don’t ruin the night. Not now.
Remember that weird bum in the cartoon hat? they’d say, years later.
“Rob,” Mary says, reaches for his gashed arm.
He smiles at her, pulls away. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.” He looks at it slyly, then smiles at her again. He had rolled up his sleeves because of the warm day, and he quickly unrolls them, covers the damage.
Mary sees the mix of blood and black saliva seep through the fabric. She looks for the thing that had attacked him, but it’s gone.
“Hey, forget that guy,” he says, clutching her hands, forcing her attention back to him, away from the escaping attacker. “Let’s eat.”
